5.  On 28 August 1992 the applicant opened a joint bank account with her husband, S.K., in Luxembourg. At the beginning of 1994 S.K. fell ill with an incurable disease. He decided that the joint bank account should be closed and the money deposited therein, 132,655.16 U.S. dollars (USD), transferred to a new account, which was to be opened in the applicant’s name at the same bank. The transaction was carried out on 28 April 1994.
6.  On 4 August 1994 S.K. died. An inventory of his estate was conducted on 1 November 1994. The applicant did not report in the inventory the money which was still in her account in Luxembourg. On 20 January 1995 she confirmed the inventory of the estate on oath before a court. She did not mention the money in her Luxembourg account. On 31 March 1995 she transferred the money to another bank account in her name in Switzerland.
 
Criminal proceedings
7.  On 3 July 1995 S.K.’s children from his previous marriage filed a criminal complaint with the police alleging that the applicant had embezzled from S.K.’s foreign bank accounts money belonging to his estate. On 16 August 1995 the applicant was questioned by the police for the first time.
8.  In August 1995 requests for international legal assistance were sent to the Luxembourg and Swiss authorities. The former replied in either August or September 1997 and the latter did not reply at all.
9.  On 24 September 1997 the Helsinki District Court (käräjäoikeus, tingsrätten) confiscated the applicant’s property in the amount of USD 477,609 (equivalent to 2,551,731 Finnish marks (FIM)) as security for the total sum allegedly embezzled by her. Apparently, the applicant’s appeal against that decision was dismissed by the Helsinki Court of Appeal (hovioikeus, hovrätten) on 4 December 1997.
10.  The pre-trial investigation was completed on 5 December 1997. Subsequently, the public prosecutor sought several extensions to the time-limit for pressing charges. On 24 May 1999 the prosecutor filed an application for a summons with the Helsinki District Court. According to the indictment the applicant had appropriated assets in the amount of USD 132,655.16 in her possession but belonging to S.K.’s estate by failing to report the money in the estate inventory.
11.  On an unspecified date the prosecutor filed a request to reduce the amount of the above-mentioned security. It appears that the District Court granted this request on 4 June 1999. On 11 October 1999 the Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s appeal in this connection, upholding the security measure as amended by the District Court.
12.  In the criminal proceedings before the District Court the applicant denied the charge of aggravated embezzlement claiming that she had not been engaged in any transactions regarding the money allegedly appropriated by her. She also contended that S.K. had told her that the money had belonged to a Russian businessman and she had not therefore been obliged to report it at the time of drawing up the estate inventory.
13.  On 13 September 1999, having obtained the testimony of the applicant and four other persons as well as written evidence, the court found the applicant guilty as charged and sentenced her to a suspended term of one year and four months’ imprisonment. She was also ordered to compensate S.K.’s estate in the amount of USD 132,655.16. The court ordered the security measure to remain in force until the compensation had been paid or levied or until it had been decided otherwise. In its reasons the court stated, inter alia, that there was no evidence to support the applicant’s allegation that the money had belonged to a Russian businessman. The court did not find the applicant’s own testimony reliable as she had given different accounts about the money on different occasions. The court concluded that she had been obliged to report the existence of the money at the time of drawing up the inventory of S.K.’s estate and that she had intentionally failed to fulfil this obligation.
14.  The applicant appealed against the judgment to the Court of Appeal maintaining that S.K. had voluntarily transferred the money to her account and that she had not been under an obligation to mention it in the estate inventory given that the money did not belong to it. In the applicant’s view, her conduct did not constitute the offence of which she was convicted.
15.  On 15 August 2000 the prosecutor requested the court to postpone its oral hearing, scheduled for 7 September 2000, in order to conduct a supplementary investigation into the applicant’s allegation that the money had belonged to a Russian businessman. She filed a request with the police to that end on the same date. The investigation was conducted in connection with a request for international legal assistance previously received from Russia and related to S.K.’s accounts abroad. Fresh requests for international legal assistance were sent to the Luxembourg and Swiss authorities. Several attempts to speed up the proceedings were then made by the Finnish police. On 19 February 2003 it was decided that the information obtained thus far would be compiled in an investigation report and used as evidence in the applicant’s case, without waiting for the completion of the investigation.
16.  On 10 and 11 November 2003 an oral hearing was held in the Court of Appeal.
17.  On 19 December 2003 that court dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld the District Court’s judgment. The court found that the evidence produced before it did not support the allegation that the money had belonged to a Russian businessman. It did show, however, that the applicant had intended to distribute the money unofficially among the parties to the estate, namely without the knowledge of the tax authorities.
18.  On 2 September 2004 the Supreme Court refused the applicant leave to appeal.
 
Taxation proceedings
19.  On 2 December 1997 the local tax authorities imposed a gift tax on the applicant amounting to FIM 327,940, based on an alleged gift from S.K. in the amount of FIM 2,551,731. A tax surcharge of FIM 65,588 was also imposed on her in this connection. The applicant’s claim for rectification was rejected by the Tax Rectification Board (verotuksen oikaisulautakunta, skatterättelsenämnd) on 20 April 1998.
20.  The applicant appealed to the County Administrative Court of Uusimaa (lääninoikeus, länsrätt) requesting that the gift tax and the related tax surcharge be quashed. She maintained that only a sum of USD 132,407 (approximately FIM 730,000) had been transferred to her bank account. She also claimed that the said money was not a gift and did not belong to her. She further pointed out that she was suspected of having embezzled the money in question and it could not be considered by the State both as a gift and as the proceeds of the alleged offence. She also contended that the tax decision was based on information obtained from the authorities in Luxembourg which, given its nature, could not be used for the purpose of taxation.
21.  On 28 May 1999 the court found for the applicant and ordered the local tax authorities to refund her the tax and tax surcharge already paid. In its reasons the court stated that, as regarded the money transferred to the applicant’s bank account in Luxembourg, the tax authorities should not have used the information obtained from the foreign authorities in connection with international legal assistance in criminal matters. As to the rest, the court noted that there was no proof of whether the applicant had in fact received the money in the first place.
22.  On 21 November 2000 the Supreme Administrative Court (korkein hallinto-oikeus, högsta förvaltningsdomstolen) dismissed the tax authority’s appeal upholding the lower court’s decision.